Ring Warriors
Ring Warriors is an American wrestling promotion in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. History The name “Ring Warriors” is not new. In 1993 the late wrestling great Hiro Matsuda, who is best known for training such men as Hulk Hogan, Paul Orndorff, the Great Muta and many others, used his merchandise company, Matsuda Enterprises, to fund a new wrestling venture. Matsuda, along with his assistant Howard Brody (who served as president of the National Wrestling Alliance from October 1996 to October 2001), created an Americanized version of New Japan Pro Wrestling by taking their footage from TV Asahi and adding English commentary (Craig DeGeorge and Sir Oliver Humperdink) and editing the matches to make them have a more global appeal; they concentrated on using non-Japanese stars and masked wrestlers. When the concept became successful thanks to a licensing agreement with the multi-language station Eurosport, World Superstars of Wrestling, Inc. was incorporated in early 1994. While the “WSW” brand was getting recognition across the European continent, there was some confusion as to if there was affiliation with World Championship Wrestling (WCW) or World Wrestling Federation (WWF), which had a show on the air called “WWF Superstars” at the time. So, on the advice of a New York marketing company, the TV program changed its name to one that would have a more universal appeal by staying away from federation-type names – thus the birth of Ring Warriors. With a new brand name and a new lead announcer (the legendary Gordon Solie replacing Craig DeGeorge), the Ring Warriors brand quickly became the most successful pro wrestling television brand across the European continent and throughout parts of Asia and Africa, drawing more viewers than either World Championship Wrestling or the World Wrestling Federation. As a reward for his hard work, Matsuda made Brody his business partner with a small percentage of ownership. In late 1997, in an attempt to break into the U.S. market, Ring Warriors became the first wrestling brand in the world to attempt online video streaming of its matches with a three-man announcing team of Gordon Solie doing play-by-play, Bruno Sammartino doing color analysis and Sir Oliver Humperdink doing an interview segment. Unfortunately the technology just wasn't what it is today and the concept failed. While the goal of Ring Warriors was to create a U.S.-based promotion with the same philosophy and style as what was presented on TV but using U.S. born performers, Matsuda passed away in late 1999 before that goal was realized. Throughout the years Brody has maintained the Ring Warriors name with periodic shows at county fairs and other venues as a means to pay homage to his former business partner and mentor. When approached in mid-2011 to do a new wrestling project by longtime friend and associate Paul Jones, Brody could think of no other name that would be best suited for such a venture. And so along with another longtime friend and associate, Larry Brannon (former NWA tag team champion Vito DeNucci), who was brought into the partnership fold, the trio launched Ring Warriors with the intention to realize Matsuda's goals. Paul Jones, who has held positions as a corporate executive in the financial and loss prevention sectors for some of the largest retail and Web based companies in the world during the past 25 years, serves as Ring Warriors Chief Executive Officer and oversees all aspects of the company's day-to-day operations including corporate and legal issues, financial resources, licensing and merchandising. Howard T. Brody holds the position of Ring Warriors Chief Operations Officer (Business) and oversees all aspects of the company's live events, promotions, sponsorships, marketing, advertising, public relations, communications and all electronic mediums including the Web. Larry Brannon, a three-time NWA world tag team champion who has owned and/or managed several companies in a variety of customer-facing industries, serves as Ring Warriors Chief Operations Officer (Talent) and is responsible for finding and booking talent, matchmaking, creating and writing storylines and executing the creative direction of the company in a strategic manner. While the short term plan for the promotion is to run several high-profile Ring Warriors events each year, the promotion would like to expand that to six or eight events each month, with the ultimate goal of producing a weekly television program sometime during the next 12 to 18 months. In 2018, Ring Warriors signed an agreement to produce a television series for WGN America. On September 15, Ring Warriors on WGN premiered on WGN America. Austin Aries opened the show, claiming that as part of his contract he had acquired part-ownership of Ring Warriors. Championships *Ring Warriors Grand Championship *Ring Warriors Global Tag Team Championship *Battling Bombshells Championship *Ring Warriors Bahamian Championship See also *Event history External links * Profile Category:American wrestling promotions Category:Promotions Category:Ring Warriors